AGIR

Two points:

--We are dealing with averages. In a particular case some people may put the skills and knowledge they acquired doing a degree to good use. I am not saying that acquiring a degree is ALWAYS a waste of time and money.

--Maybe your friend has some other qualities that you lack which enabled him to get ahead. Perhaps he would have done so even had he not had a degree.

Oliver

You raise an interesting point. Very often the possession of a degree is used as evidence that you have the self-discipline to stick with something.

There is of course another factor. Most human resources flacks have degrees. Since they write the rules they tend to make possession of a degree a pre-requisite for many jobs.

One point we should all consider. It takes 3-4 years to earn an under-graduate degree in Australia. Suppose you had been working those 3-4 years:

--You would have earned a considerable sum

--In most cases you would have learned more and acquired more skills than a university course can provide

--Most business jobs do not require a degree.

I want to emphasise that I am talking about "naked" undergraduate degrees only. If you want to become an accountant, engineer, doctor, lawyer, psychologist etc you need the credentials.

StG

I do not know what it is you intend to do with your life. Nor do I want to discourage you from getting a qualification. But I will ask you to consider the following:

--To get a worthwhile degree from a good university requires considerable effort over a number of years.

--Would you be better off devoting that SAME EFFORT directly to your career / job

My degree got me my first big job, but very little of it was of much use, in that job.

I learnt most of my engineering from tradesmen, who I found love teaching anyone who really wants to know. The good ones never stop learning, or teaching.

However, the high tech engineering was taught to me by a couple of amateur engineers, one a sales tax expert, & the other an insurance broker. None of the professionals I have met, although I'm sure there are many, ever put as much effort into perfecting something as those amateurs.

I want to do youth work, stevenlmeyer. I've always wanted to do a community work sort of thing. I can start out on cert 4, but at some stage I'll need a degree. It's an entire change of direction for me.

StG

I wish you luck in your chosen new career. If you need a qualification to make progress in it then of course you must go for it.

Dear Steven,

I'm not sure of the statistics but the
proportion of the population with bachelor's
and master's degrees, and even doctorates seems
to have increased at an astonishing pace.

Education appears to have expanded in response
to economic growth and new and challenging
jobs have demanded higher levels of skill.
Universities have helped to keep
the social system in balance by producing the
necessary trained workers.

However, having said that -
Numerous studies have shown that there is
little or no relationship between educational
achievement and job performance or productivity.
For example, good grades in a graduate school of
medicine or education are poor predictors of whether
someone will become a good doctor or teacher.

The fact is that the skills required to get a Credit or
a High Disctinction
in a university course on anatomy or educational
philosophy are not the same skills needed to deal
with a medical emergency or an unruly high school class.

Most people pick up the necessary skills on the job, not
in the classroom, and the characteristics that make for
a successful career (initiative, leadership, drive,
negotiating ability, willingness to take risks, and
persuasiveness) are not taught in universities.
Also, many univsity graduates actually work in fields
they consider unrelated to their major subjects.

What is the dollar value of a university
degree? I would say - that depends on the area of study.
As a Librarian, formal qualifications are mandatory
for my job. You can't be an Associate of ALIA (Australian
Library and Information Association) without
tertiary qualifications, and that is a pre-requsite in
being hired as a Librarian.
On the whole, however, a higher credential means higher
earnings, simply because of the value the job market
places on it. If you look at top earning
professions like Physician, College Professor, Psychiatrist,
Judge, Lawyer, Dentist, Banker, Psychologist, Architect,
Vet. et cetera -
you will notice that these jobs tend to be those
that are known not only to yield the highest incomes
but also require the longest education.

My degrees provided me with the skills and training that are a **NECESSITY** in my field of work. I'm now retired, but without my degrees I would not have been able to perform my work at a safe and competent standard. A degree is invaluable. Almost any degree is invaluable. If a person considers it's not, then the fault lies with the person NOT the degree.......... but that's life, the world is full of people who blame everything and everyone for their lack of progress.

A degree "itself" doesn't mean anything...... a piece of paper is just that, "a piece of paper" and is meaningless by "itself". That's why many people with degrees are failures. The failure is NOT the education they received; it's the person that's the failure, because he/she is incapable of "using" their education to full effect: But even under those circumstances a person can still become very successful in fields that provide "on the job" based training.

So in other words, even if a university training fails to inspire and motivate a student, there's still heaps of opportunity in our type of society to become successful in one's working life.